Five Letters
by indiaga
Summary: Tony did not call, but he wrote five letters, and she never saw them. Set between Season 5 and 6, Tony on the Seahawk writing unposted angsty letter to Ziva back in Israel. Rated T for occasional language, themes, imaginings, nothing graphic or violent.
1. Prologue

**New thing, guys. I'm starting way too many of these, and not finishing the ones I should. But I kinda think **_**Touch**_** is winding down to its own natural end, and possibly even the same with **_**Fists and co.**_** I don't know. **_**Oh my word**_** is still going strong (thanks to the wonderful words as donated by AutumnGray) but I really felt that this needed writing (I also have another idea for a hideously depressing one, but since I only updated on that front like 2 days ago, I'm thinking, maybe leave it for a while).**

**This is set in the summer between Seasons 5 and 6 – the summer where the team was broken up, Ziva went back to Israel and Tony had lots of fun on a boat for five months. The main premise comes from a tag (I re-watched 6.02 the other day) – when Ziva says 'You could have called' it got me thinking. He didn't call...but he could have written. And then I was thinking, five months (I think?? In this fic, anyway), a letter a month, that he never sent, and how the tone of the letters could have changed over that time. I always got the impression that Tony grew up massively in those months away, and I really wanted to explore that through him being perfectly honest about it. And what better way that through letters that he never intended to post? And, because I'm a sucker for some Tiva, the letters would be for Ziva, and happy/sad loveliness would ensue.**

**Anyway. Massive authors note (as usual, I ramble way too much). But, ooh, one more thing! And this excited me SO much! It probably won't excite you, but anyway. I watched the Season 6 episode South by Southwest today (when I should have been doing all my homework, and now I'm fanfictioning...hmmm) and that's the episode where an NCIS Agent gets shot, and Tony thinks he might be about to inherit millions from his dead British uncle. And there's a bit where Tony and McGee are pretending to be painters on board a ship to catch this guy, and Tony mentions HENLEY ON THAMES.**

**OK. I know for the VAST majority of you this will be a bit '...yeah, and?' But for me it's one of the most exciting things ever! Because Henley on Thames is LITERALLY half an hour down the road from me (I'm still sensing some '...yeah, and?'). But this is important, because although I adore NCIS with my entire heart (sadly, it's true) they NEVER mention anything I'm really familiar with, geography-wise, apart from Ducky who occasionally rambles on about London or Edinburgh. But Tony, TONY, actually said the words Henley on Thames!! HIS CHARACTER IS AWARE OF A VILLAGE HALF AN HOUR FROM WHERE I LIVE! My God. I literally squealed out loud when I heard it (and then giggled like a fool at his amazing British accent). SO anyway. Incredibly fizzly news for me :)**

**Haha. Just realised that the AN for this is actually about 10 times the length of the actual thing. But it's a prologue, so it doesn't count. Here we go:**

**Summary: One long summer, and he didn't call once. But oh, he wrote...**

**Disclaimer: So unbelievably not mine.**

Anthony DiNozzo was never one for eloquence. He could say what needed to be said, and he could be flippant or funny about it, but he could never make the words beautiful. Anthony DiNozzo was trapped in a floating metal box with five thousand other lives and he had never felt so alone. Anthony DiNozzo did not call.

There were five letters. One for each month.

**I'm not expecting reviews for this. But Letter One is already up :)**


	2. Letter One

**Letter One**

Ziva,

I don't know what to say, or how to even start this. It'll never be sent, I guess. The postal service ain't so great aboard the SS Jolly Seahawk. And, as one particularly pleasant petty officer reminded me, why would I even want a letter posted anyway? It's not as if I have a wife.

I don't think about it much, but the fact remains that he's right. I don't have a wife, or kids. I don't even have a girlfriend. I'm close to forty, and there's nothing. And whilst all the parties and sex and pretty girls were great when I was a kid, it turns out those years are gone. Parties tire me out. All the pretty girls I meet (met, past tense now, I guess) have nothing in their heads. Depressing, really, when you think about it, that all that DiNozzo potential has been wasted, but I guess that's why there's meant to be a heaven. Folks on earth just wouldn't be able to handle pure, unadulterated _eau de DiNozzo_ (do me a favour and patent that, please).

You know what I mean? Not about the charm/cologne idea, the thing about...being on my own, I guess. Wow. Cheerful letter, huh? I guess by now you're already settled back in, guns a-blazing, knives a-slicing. It's odd, although you sometimes showed frustration at the American way of doing things (more humanity, less kneecapping), you never really mentioned whether you missed Mossad or not. I always hoped you didn't. It was childish, the way I showed off in front of you. Trying to force you to have fun, to prefer being here. With us. With me. I've always been like it, it's a DiNozzo thing. I would apologise, but we both know that it would be an inexcusable sign of weakness.

Being honest? I have no idea what I intend for this letter to achieve. Like I said, it's not like you'll ever read it. I just wonder what you're doing now. Laughing at some (Hebrew) jokes, mocking a (Jewish) geek, being terrified by your (Israeli) boss. That's my point; that's my problem. I try so hard to see us, our team, as irreplaceable, but the fact of the matter is that you knew so much before us. You had a family, whether you loved them or not, and they knew and understood far more about you, your history, your duty, your feelings that we ever could. They knew what it felt like to love Israel more than a mother, father, lover. More than a child, even, I bet. I cannot show that kind of dedication. I love NCIS, I love our marines, I love America, sure. But if I had to choose between national meltdown and the prospect of no more hugs from Abby, no more nerdness from McGee, no more headslaps...it's shockingly obvious which I would choose. There would _be_ no choice, and that's what divides us.

Ha. It seems just too ironic to accuse you of having choice. You never did, you never do. You, out of everyone I know, did what she was told. Even if it killed you. Even if it broke your heart. And it broke mine, a little bit, every time I saw you bite your tongue and blink away your tears and ruin your happiness for that precious white and blue.

Well. That's enough of my shameless psychoanalysis, I think, at least for today. You might want to hear a little bit about my new life as an Agent Afloat. Well, Mossad Officer Ziva David, it, quite simply, is hell.

OK. Perhaps an exaggeration. But it's close – Pandaemonium, maybe (you should be touched that I made a literature reference instead of a cinematic one). It's me and the five thousand (Biblical, not cinematic. Guess I left _that_ DiNozzo back in D.C.). And every single one of them, it seems, is crude, rude, sexually frustrated, hostile to any form of authority, and doesn't appreciate my humour - that, above all else, is unforgiveable.

As an Agent Afloat, I get my own room. Sorry. Did I say room? I clearly mean a hole in the wall that someone hollowed out, filled with a mattress and the stench of despair (and piss, and I don't want to know what that comes from) and saw fit to describe it as 'living quarters'. It's barely a quarter of what I need to live. Isn't that ironic?

Well. I've just received word that some big badass marine is crying because someone called him a bitch or something equally unforgiveable, and I have to go and wipe his tears and possibly his ass too, while I'm at it. So I've got to go. I know you won't mind. You'll never know, anyway.

Bye, Ziva.

Tony.

**Review now, maybe? Hope so :) Letter Two will be up in a couple of days or so. Also, look out for Oh My Word updates...**


	3. Letter Two

**Hi guys. For some reason I'm feeling really odd today. Happy/dreamy/sad all at the same time. So I thought, perfect mood in which to update. And I only have a COUPLE of essays I'm ignoring (usually, they just sit there crying at the edge of my desk until the night before they're due in) so all is good in the world. Cannot wait for tonight's update, but I hope it's gona contain SOME Tiva. They can't just leave it/abandon this plot arc (like they did with the Gibbs-free summer, I'm still burningly curious), and I just cannot wait.**

**On a slightly unrelated note, did everyone know that Michael Weatherly got married sometime in August/September? I only found out today, I mean, I knew he was engaged but still...although they look very happy together and I'm sure she's lovely and he says the sweetest things about her, my heart is a little bit broken.**

**And keeping on the Michael Weatherly train (not especially hard for me to do) I found this REALLY weird/cool video he made with someone unconnected to NCIS...it's called The Sentimental Conversation, and he's Part One. Look for it on Youtube. Seriously surreal. Plus, you get to see his shirtless and he talks about putting fish in painful places...just watch.  
**

**Anyway. Back to this. I'm not sure about this update. I wanted to get a genuine smooth flow from flippant Tony to angst-ridden Tony throughout the five letters, but this one seems a bit jumbled. Maybe it's more realistic - I don't know. I'll leave it for you to decide.**

**And for those who follow 'Oh My Word', it's about to be updated with 'precarious' (thank you for such WONDERFUL words AG, I keep having nightmares about _hoover_ and _flagpole_) so yeah. Just some shameless self advertising. **

**And here we are.  
**

**Letter Two**

Ziva,

Oh my God. Oh. My. God. I'm slowly going crazy here on this damn boat, and I haven't heard from Gibbs in over two weeks. He promised he'd get us all back together, but I guess even Gibbs cannot oppose the mighty wrath of Lord Toothpick. I got a call from McGee yesterday, said the basement was like hell on earth. I soon corrected him. Anyway, in other news (and I don't know if you're hearing from them or not, maybe you want to make a clean break or maybe your father just won't let you), Abby is starting to wear her make up again. I swear, the thought of Abby, all scrubbed pink cheeks, it gave me the jitters. It's just wrong. And McGee said that she's made a little shrine to the three of us on the wall of the lab. I don't know how Team Gibbs II are taking that. I can't even say for certain how Gibbs is taking that. I know there are more important things for him to be dealing with – another one down, another one gone – and I'm thinking maybe...maybe he just doesn't want the constant reminders?

I don't know, Ziva. I just get the feeling that this is it. That I'm – that we're – not coming home. And it sucks. It majorly sucks. This boat is eating away at my will to live, I'm telling you. I don't know if Israel is any better – I know it's your country, but I'm not certain that it's your home, not any more. Or maybe I _am_ certain, and that's what's killing me – but _man_, at the moment I really hate marines. OK. I take that back. I can already feel Gibbs warming up his slapping hand. But, my _God._ They whine! They whine like little girls, only, unlike little girls, they're capable of paralysing me with a single blow. And, also unlike little girls, they find sexual innuendo in _everything_. If you thought I was bad, you should spend an hour in the company of these charmers. Just writing this letter, and I get smirks and idiotic jokes. I wonder if Gibbs was ever like this. Impossible. But I suppose he was young once.

Actually, on second thoughts, scrap that.

But I guess you don't really want to know. At least, you don't want to know _this_. It's a little pathetic, how I can't even be honest in a letter. Well. Here goes.

I miss you, Zi. I miss you way more than I thought I would, and believe me, I knew I was going to miss you a _lot_. It's weird. It hurts, almost. More like my breathing is stifled, and I'm slowly being suffocated across the days and weeks and there's nothing I can do about it.

I don't hear from you. I don't know where you are, what you're doing. Who you're with. I don't even know if you're here, still, or far away from all of this. I keep telling myself that I'd know, I'd just _know_ if something happened to you, but the truth is, I wouldn't. I'm not psychic, or magic, and if you were to die, on the other side of the world from me, I promise you, I would not feel a thing.

It terrifies me, to be perfectly honest with you. It's stupid, and it was never even like this to begin with, but stuck on this ship...I can't look after you. I can't protect you. I don't know if I ever did – you were always capable of looking after yourself – but I can't even be sure whether you're safe from one minute to the next. It's so exhausting, caring so much for so many when I didn't use to care at all.

Do you remember being undercover together? Not the sex bit, although that was fun. The 'getting captured' bit, the 'not-part-of-the-plan' bit. When they tied us up together and just beat the crap out of us (me, mostly, if I remember correctly) and I genuinely thought that was it, for both of us.

I tried to get you out of there. And I saw it in your eyes, the surprise. It wasn't surprise at the plan. It was surprise at my willingness to be the sacrificial lamb, so to speak. You didn't expect it, not from me. It was that moment that I saw myself as others did. Once. I don't think Gibbs did, or Abby, Probie, Ducky. I'm not sure about Jenny. But I was sure about you.

I can't blame you. I hadn't exactly done great things in the time you'd known me. I wanted to. But I saw it in your eyes. I saw that you didn't see me. It stung like a bitch. And that was the moment. I wanted to be a better person. I didn't want to see the surprise ever again. Not in your eyes. Never in your eyes. It terrifies me, to be perfectly honest with you. I hope you understand what I mean.

And I hope you never read these letters.

I would say 'love from', but I know how you feel about love.

Just...

Tony

**As always, I appreciate reviews, but I totally understand if you're too busy/cannot be bothered :) Still, they _do_ make my day :)**


	4. Letter Three

**Another update...it's 2.30 AM in the morning here and it's weird but I'm not even vaguely tired...my entire house is snoozling merrily away and here I am delving into **_**el psyche del DiNozzoI.**_** It's kinda fun.**

**Well, anyway. I like this update, a lot. I'm trying to change the tone (aha, I accidentally wrote tony) of each update just **_**slightly**_** to mirror his changing across the months...I don't know if I'm doing a good job of it but I like to think so :)**

**Well. There's nothing much left for me to do but disclaim, (*disclaims*) and hope you all have a pleasant read and a pleasant evening.**

**Letter Three**

Zi,

I tried to call you the other day but your father answered the phone and I realised there was nothing to say. I didn't have anything to say to you. I just wanted to hear your voice.

I could say it's because of the whole 'lack of females' thing going on over here, but it wouldn't be the truth. I miss you, Ziva. I miss you more than anyone, really, and that's not easy for me to admit - and you certainly can't tell Abby, because she'd never forgive me...still, she's got McGee, I suppose, and Gibbs has Ducky, or, failing that, boat, bourbon, basement and an overwhelming sense of guilt at allowing his team to be ripped apart so violently and doing nothing but sip that coffee and give Vance the Gibbslook© that we all know doesn't work on _el palillo de dientes _(I would be helpful and translate but your Spanish is better than mine). Man, Ziva. It would shock you, make even you speechless how much I think about you.

I put our LA photos up on the wall. Ha, I can see your expression all the way over here. You know, it's a good thing we're so far away from each other because if you were in the room I would be really scared for my extremities. But as it is, I would give my right arm to have you back. Just for a night...

That doesn't sound right. But you know what I mean. We did our best talking at night. Our best bonding. The Gibbs-less summer, the nights following the diner. We spoke of real things, things that meant something. I told you about my mother, and you told me about your father, and I think we both understood a lot more after that. I certainly understood you better. I like to think.

You know what it feels like? It feels like I finally saw you, the real you, the open, honest, achingly vulnerable you for just a second, a fleeting moment when Vance told you the position had been terminated, I saw the fear and panic and utter disbelief in your eyes, saw the way it bled across your face and left you young again. I wanted to hold you then, tell you everything was going to be alright because for once in your lonely little life there was someone who cared enough, who loved enough to look out for you, to protect you even when you tried to kill them for attempting it. All you need is one person in life, that's what I think anyway, just one other person and then you'll be OK. It's when you've got nobody that things start to unravel, and my dear Miss David, I have nobody. I have some crude, sunny photographs and a sweater you once slept in and that's all I have left of you, and even the sweater has lost the scent of your perfume and now it is only there when I imagine it. What I want, what I dream of is one of the photos Abby took – do you remember, last Christmas, when we all met up in the snow and you were wearing a scarf and a woolly hat with earflaps, and I teased you and you said that in Israel it was never this cold so what were you supposed to do?, and then I swept you up in my arms and even though you warned me under your breath about all the colourful genital mutilation you could do with a paperclip, your eyes seemed happy to be there, and I told you Israel had nothing on this, and you didn't disagree.

I hope to God that memory is as adored by you as it is by me. But so many things seem so very little to others, and you are so very, very hard to read, Ziva. I could never tell when you were lying. Except, suddenly, I could, and by that time it was far too late and you were far too gone from me for me to be able to do anything about it.

You know something? I sincerely hope that things are going well for you, Ziva, and that they continue to go well. If you were Kate (and you're not, and I know that) I would wish things were going badly, unbearably, so that you might miss me as much as I miss you. But you're not Kate, and I can't stand the thought of you being unhappy.

I always thought that love was a selfish thing. It's not, I know that, but I don't know what love is anymore, and it makes me so terrified to think that I might have missed it. Somehow, between the pair of you – and I don't think you ever even spoke to one another – you and Jeanne managed to break a heart I didn't know I had. And I thank you and hate you for that in equal measures. It was so easy, so peaceful and painless, living an empty life.

I've taken to staring at the sky and the sea a lot. It makes sense, really, stuck on this floating prison, trapped between the up and the down and choked by the aching absence of land. Ironic, really, that I work for the Navy yet I cannot stand their boats. If you stare at the sky for a while, and then suddenly flip and stare at the sea, it takes a second or so for your eyes to register, and those are the most beautiful seconds imaginable.

It is breathtaking at night. Dangerous and silent and the most bewitching thing you ever saw. Well. The most bewitching thing I ever saw. You've seen so much in your few years. It constantly surprises me that you are able to smile so easily. I used to wonder whether ghosts haunted your eyes, your lips, your lungs. After a while, I gave up trying to work you out and just adored your surprising and infrequent moments of happiness. And then, all of a sudden, it dawned – it crashed, right down onto me, and I saw it so clearly, and then you left.

And now I don't know what to do and everywhere I look is the sky and the sea and the utter lack of your pretty, pretty self.

I don't know, Ziva. You're so often in my thoughts.

Tony.

**I am totally in love with reviews almost as much as I am in love with Tiva, so if you have time, I would really appreciate it :)**


	5. Letter Four

**Hey guyssss. Having an update-athon tonight (Paradise Lost, PARADISE LOST) so enjoy. And I just wanted to take this opportunity to say (I keep forgetting to which makes me feel guilty) a massive, MASSIVE thank you to EVERYONE who has reviewed. All reviews make me smile, most make me so so happy and a few just have the ability to make my day and leave me feeling moved and humble. So yeah. So much gratitude going out to all of you.**

**I've actually completed this series now, so Letter Five should be posted sometime soon. I've really enjoyed this one, partly because I've had a decided idea of where I'm going with it, and also because writing Tony is just so fun, and it's SO satisfying exploring the possibility of him feeling SOMETHING for Ziva (the last couple of episodes have been upsettingly low on the Tiva front). I just saw the NCIS Wetpaint update for the 7.08 episode Power Down and I'm really excited – is this the episode where Ziva gets trapped in a lift? If you've seen the promotional photos, I'm not entirely sure where this can happen, because she appears in quite a few photos...and I'm still wondering WHO it is she gets trapped with (apparently it's not Tony, sobsobsob, but I'm thinking it would be really cool if it was McGee...I think Gibbs and Ziva wouldn't ahve anything left to say to each other, after episodes like Good Cop, Bad Cop...Vance it would just be weird, Ducky mayyyyybe, Jimmy Palmer would be just plain funny). But yes. I'm not sure.**

**What I am sure about is that I ramble enough in my AN's, and so I'm going to stop now :) Just to say thank you for reading, NCIS is not mine, and if you have the time to review, I would really, really appreciate it.**

**Letter Four**

Ziva.

It's been four months now, and I'm running out of carefree things to say to you. If you want, I could tell you about the marines, the equipment, the constant noise, the disgusting food, I could tell you about the freezing showers and rude wake up calls and choking loneliness, I could tell you how much I hate it when people don't laugh at my jokes and don't want my company, I could tell you how much I want to cry when I think of Abby and McGee and Gibbs and you. I could tell you what I'm starting to realise, and how utterly terrified it makes me feel. But I know you too well to kid myself you would want to hear any of it.

You're a long way gone, in more ways than one. Sometimes I try and imagine you lying awake at night thinking of us – of us and then _us_ – but all too often it's impossible. I see you sleeping sweetly in the arms of a man who is far better than myself. Perhaps he is stronger, braver, his aim more deadly. Perhaps he reads, like you, and thinks of important things. Perhaps his eyes are haunted in the same way, and you see yourself clearly in them. I don't know, Ziva. I don't _know_.

Whatever happens for you, know that I am happy in your happiness, and I mean that. I don't want you to be lonely just because I am. I don't want you to ache in the same way that I do.

I'm resigned to this boat, now. Reconciled with it, almost. I realised that it's not the boat I hate, nor the marines. I could deal with the food, the lack of dry land, the constant droning noise. But I cannot deal with being away from home. It's the first one I've found, really, ever, in my empty little life, and now it's gone. Home, and family, and warmth, and love. Things Anthony DiNozzo never thought he would want, or need. But then he got them, regardless, and now they are far away from him, and he doesn't know where to turn. And he's speaking in the third person, and he's a little disgusted by that, to tell the truth. But that's the point. I _am_ telling the truth. I don't know where to turn.

Don't worry. I'm not turning to you. I won't ever send these letters. I would never be that cruel. I know exactly how they would make you feel, hot and watched and utterly uncomfortable. I used to love making you squirm, but by the end so much had happened, I'd seen you raw and bleeding just too many times, and all I wanted was to look after you and protect you from any big bad wolf that came your way. Sometimes, I misunderstood when you said 'us', I thought you meant _us_ and it made me feel something so new and unfamiliar. It made me scared and uncertain, angry and proud and pulsing and loving. It made me want to kiss you.

But then you would say something, smirk somehow, and it would be back to how it was, how it used to be, before Gibbs and Jeanne and everything that broke us and made us grow, and I would shake my head and laugh at the silly things I thought. Kiss you. Ha. You'd sooner put a round through my heart.

Although you said you didn't lie, you lied to me a lot, and I guess that was just another one. I could read your eyes a lot better than you gave me credit for, and a smaller man might take offence, but I'm too old and tired for childish things. Every time you said things like _I don't care, it doesn't matter, don't worry, you wouldn't understand, nothing, _I saw what you meant. _I don't care_ meant _I'm too afraid that _you_ wouldn't care. Don't worry _meant_ I'm not worth your time. You wouldn't understand _meant _you would, and it terrifies me. Nothing_ meant _everything._

I know how much you hate it when I read you right. But I can't ignore what's screaming in my face, especially when it's no longer screaming and not in my face. You're away from me, Zi, probably for ever. We'll remember each other in quiet, sudden, fleeting moments, I'm sure, perhaps with another partner, perhaps even with another lover. Perhaps the thought will make us smile or cry. Perhaps it will just leave us silent for a minute or two. I _do not_ know. I _cannot_ care. Anything in the future that doesn't contain home and you…I'm finding it difficult to picture. I don't think I'll really mind. It's like…this sounds stupid, but it's like pain. We mind pain because it is less pleasant than the absence of pain – than feeling happy and healthy. Because it reminds us just how much we appreciate not hurting. How can you mind a future of pain if you know that there is never going to be the opportunity to evade it? Because it's the very existence of the chance to stop it that makes it hurt so much. It's the missed opportunities that kill us, Zi.

Then again, you'd probably say it was blades and bullets. You're not the average beauty. It's why I like your company.

I know we never spoke of that summer after Gibbs came back. I know you didn't want to remember it. I didn't want to push you, and I was a little relieved when you kept making excuses. I didn't persist. It would have been too much, too caged and jagged and just _too_ close to those damn rules that returned with the moustache. I wouldn't have been able to touch you like I did – careless and casual, arm around the shoulder, legs across my lap, fingers tickling the curve of your waist where it always made you flinch and giggle – without thinking just how much we would ruin if we couldn't stop touching.

I don't know if you ever felt this way. Maybe all you wanted was a partner you could rely on, someone who would have your back completely. I know how crazy you got, back with Jeanne and Jenny and all the damn secrets, when I started acting all weird, dodging questions and evading your gaze. You will never know how guilty I felt. I could read the fear on your lips.

When my eyes did not meet yours, they met your mouth instead. I watched you lie through your teeth and I loved it. I loved your concern. I've grown since then.

It's probably too late for anything, Ziva, and you were never a great one for hope. So I'm not going to say it. You wouldn't want me to. I still think of you almost constantly, and I try to avoid contemplating why possessive pronouns keep popping up more and more. You never belonged to anyone but your father.

Yours (or mine, or ours, or nobody's),

Tony.

**If you have time, please review. And thank you in advance.**


	6. Letter Five

**Bonjour guys. Firstly, and I don't say this enough, thank you all SO much for the wonderful, beautiful, tear-jerking, heart-breaking, breath-taking, utterly humbling reviews. Just...sublime, to open my inbox in crappy registration and find so many lovely words from you all. So thank you, more than you will ever know.**

**OK. I had a slight change of heart about this one. I know I said Letter Five was done and dusted, and would be posted soon, but I changed my mind about it. Let's just say...although the title is Five Letters, it's now incredibly misleading and inaccurate, and don't take this off storyalert anytime soon :)**

**OK. Well, I think that's it from me, apart from to say I hope you enjoy this and an update for Oh My Word may be coming up within the next hour :)**

**Disclaimer: Yeah. Totally un-mine.**

**Letter Five**

Ziva.

I hear you might be going back. Back to Gibbs and McGee. Abby, Ducky, Palmer. Back to Vance. Back to it all.

You're not coming back to me. Or I'm not coming back to you. Whatever way, I'm not going to see you again. My gut tells me otherwise, my gut keeps telling me to carry on hoping, carry on sleepwalking through this indifferent boat until you rescue me, my knight in shining cargo pants, me the tired, flippant damsel. But I think we both know better than to trust my gut.

That time when we went undercover. We got in that elevator and I should have noticed, should have _known_. You were new, fresh and impulsive, and I was responsible for you, although you would never have admitted it. I was there to keep you safe, keep you from pulling the trigger too soon and keep you harm, from bullets pouring into your heart. But my gut just told me the elevator was fine, safe as houses, and then suddenly we're tied to a chair and we're going to die and there's nothing I can do to keep you from it.

With Jeanne. My gut told me to keep on going, keep on lying, that it would all sort itself out. My lies came back and caught me round my throat, choked me, poisoned me, stabbed me a million times with the looks you both gave me. I lost her completely; but I lost you partly, and is it peculiar that the unfinished loss of you stings _so_ much worse than the absolute loss of her? I am not a good man, Ziva. I am _not_ a good man.

And then Jenny. You want to know the truth, why I didn't want to get involved? The utter truth, unflinching and brutal, that will make you look away and hate me? I wanted a day with you. I wanted the sun to be shining on us, for you to wear sunglasses and a dress and have your hair curly, I wanted to drive you around a city, I wanted people to look at us and assume we were alive and loving. I wanted to pretend, just for a day, that I could have you and nothing bad would happen. She died. Bad things happen. Now I'm on this boat and it's probably safest for you if we stay far apart. You think you result in death? Ziva, I've never kept a heart safe in all my life.

I hope time has been kind to you. It is utterly strange to me, how I lived for so many empty years without you – and I did fine – and when I first met you I wanted nothing more than to cut your hair, lighten your skin, sit you at the desk and call you Kate. I would have let you die a million times to get her back. And now? I would die a million times if it kept you safe and happy. Now, it appears as though I cannot live without you for five months. I won't be on this ship for the rest of my life, but when I return, you will have gone from me, utterly this time. Irrevocably. What I keep forgetting, what keeps me from sleeping, what I know with absolute terror, is that the world does not stop turning just because my own life stills. We do not stop spinning simply because we want to, Ziva.

This doesn't make any sense. Remember that time…no. You won't remember. You're safe in the arms of your family, once again, and you can decide who I'm talking about. You're home. You're happy. It's what I cling to, and, if you're not, please don't be cruel. Please don't be so cruel as to tell me otherwise.

Ziva. Ziva David. Zee-vah-Dah-veed. It's such a _beautiful_ name, and I never realised, and when I did, I never told you. It's just me all over, I guess. Too late and too ruined to be of any use.

I don't drink as much as I used to, and I don't joke as much as I used to. I don't talk as much as I used to and I don't smile as much as I used to. I think about you constantly, and I can never seem to see you as anything but glowing. You rarely glow, Ziva, but when you did I would go home happy, I would go home _so_ happy because of it. You. Because of you.

Maybe we need to talk about Jenny. Maybe it was my fault, maybe it wasn't. It was, but let's pretend, at least for a while. Let's pretend her and Gibbs are on some mission somewhere – Paris, let's say Paris – and it's just you and me and McGee, and he's so hooked on Abby he spends all his time down in the lab, and it could be you and me, all day, together, alone together, and we would smile, joke, laugh, annoy each other, argue, fight, throw things, hurt, touch for just a split second longer than we should, meet our eyes too often and too deeply, seduce and hate and tease and slouch, fight crimes and solve cases and still manage to look _so pretty_, and be partners and trust each other with our lives. All on our own, no rules and no onlookers, just us, and I'd have your back this time, I really would, Zi, I really would. I would have your back.

I would have you back. I want you back.

But the thing is, you are. You _are_ back, and I'm the one that's not, and now I know, more utterly and more perpetually, two things above all others.

One is that I'm not coming back.

So much of myself is yours, Ziva. I don't know where to start.

Tony.

**I always love reviews, as I've said many, many times before :) But I love you guys more.**


	7. The only letter that said it completely

**Hey guysssss. Final update on this one, and I know a lot of you have wanted me to make it so that Ziva finds the letters, but let me tell you now, it doesn't happen. For these reasons:**

**-It's got the word 'letters' in the title for a reason :) Most of you will probably know that I prefer character studies rather than 'real life' stuff (with plots and interest, lol). I meant for it to be a letter for each month, and nothing else.  
**

**- I always intended for this to be an exploration of Tony's state of mind during that summer - although it was Tiva in that the main ones featured were Tony and Ziva, there is not any Tiva interaction apart from flashbacks, references, etc. I wanted this to be decidedly separate to most of my other fics.**

**-Season 6 would have developed COMPLETELY differently if Ziva found the letters, and although you can argue that 'it's just a fic, it doesn't have to fit in', for me, it does. It makes it more realistic and believable, and it's easier for us to carry on thinking that this ACTUALLY happened (thereby increasing the Tivalove in the world, which can only be a good thing).**

**-I think it could all too easily become cutesy and goopy if Ziva found them, and I didn't want that for this Tony-centric piece.**

**Remember, there's always the possibility that I do an accompanying one from Ziva's point of view.**

**Also: I wrote this one a particular way because I thought it was best as it is - understated, short, sweet, _them_. However, for it to make sense, I would suggest re-reading Letter Five (specifically like the last few lines) because if you read it carefully, you'll realise he says something incredibly important and meaningful...which leads on to this...**

**Anyway! Enjoy, and, if you have time, review. And um...NCIS is so completely and utterly not mine. Disclaimed enough for you? :)  
**

**Letter Six**

When Abby sent him the picture of the four of them – Gibbs, Ziva, McGee, and herself, smiling and warm and so _completely_ home – he kept it close to his skin and became quiet for a very long time. Now his bunk is empty, his possessions elsewhere. He is forgotten on the ship, was forgotten a little too quickly, and so no-one will ever look under his lonely little bed and see anything scratched into the familiar, flaking paint. No one will check, and no one will ever know.

_Ziva._

_The other is, I love you._

_Tony._

Least of all her.

-

_Fin._

-

**I really, REALLY hope this is ok for you all. I KNOW it's so short and perhaps that's (really) annoying but it's more of an epilogue than anything else. Ahhh...I'm sorry if it's irritating. I just thought it was...sweet. Aha. Anyway. Review, and you'll make me very happy!!**

**THE END.**


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